Anger Management Therapy
"Anger
is a bad adviser"
Mindfullness Based Stress Reduction
Duration:
2 Day Retreat: 21-22 September 2008
Times: TBA
Programme: Mixed Group
Fee: £395 (excluding meals)
Venue: Please see the bookings page
for details
Download
a Document for more information
Stress
is caused by being “here” but wanting to be “there”
or being in the present and wanting to be in the future. It’s a
split that tears you apart inside.
“Identification with your mind creates an opaque screen of concepts,
labels, images, words, judgements, and definitions that blocks all true
relationship.”
Eckart Tolle
Mindfulness-Based
Stress Reduction
with Vanessa Hope
• A quarter of the workforce experiences office rage
• 23% of staff feel extreme anger at work
• One in twenty suffer from severe stress
• At least 15% of the workforce experience depression
• Staff absenteeism costs an average of £700 per employee p. a.
• 18 days a year is lost due to anger and stress related illness
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is described as moment to moment, non-judgmental awareness.This capacity may
sound simple; however, when we take time to purposely attend to the activity of the mind we find
that it shuttles continuously between the future and the past.We realise that we are seldom
present to the moments of our lives. Mindfulness teaches us that every moment is an opportunity
to be present and aware, so that our lives can become the meditation as we learn to dance more
creatively with life’s challenges and joys.
What is MBSR?
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) was developed by Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn in 1979 and is
now the largest and most well-known stress reduction programme worldwide. Learning practices
taken from yoga and meditation, participants are helped to access their internal resources for
balance and healing through the cultivation of present moment awareness. More recently these
practices have also proved useful in the treatment of depression in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive
Therapy programmes (MBCT) pioneered by Zindel Segal, John Teasdale and Mark Williams.
In the words of Jon Kabat Zinn “the present moment is the only moment when you’re actually
alive, so if growth or healing is to occur, it’s now, not some other moment when you get your life
together or get cured”. Research studies on both MBSR and MBCT document the following effects
• Lasting decreases in both physiological and psychological stress
• Increased ability to relax
• Greater energy and enthusiasm for life
• Improved self-esteem
• More creative capacity to cope with stress
• Improved relationships
This two-day retreat aims to introduce the practice of mindfulness to participants and to
encourage the cultivation and deepening of present moment awareness by exploration of the
following practices:
• Body Scan
• Sitting Meditation
• Mindful Movement
• Walking meditation
• Eating meditation
• Mountain meditation
• Loving-kindness practice
These practices will be investigated both experientially and in group discussion which will include
the following topics
• Stress: what it is and how it affects us
• Understanding stress physiology and the implications of new neuroscience research
• How to learn to respond rather than react to stress
Biography
Vanessa Hope BAHons DSH
Vanessa Hope is an accredited mindfulness teacher with the Centre for Mindfulness Research and
Practice, University of Wales, Bangor, which is the centre for mindfulness training in the UK. She
has trained with teachers both from Bangor and the Center for Mindfulness, Massachusetts, where
Jon Kabat-Zinn started the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction programme over 25 years ago.
Her professional background is as a Homeopath and she has been in practice since 1990. She has
also lectured at several Homeopathy colleges and been a supervisor for both students and practitioners.
She has been practicing yoga and meditation for over 25 years and started teaching mindfulness-
based courses in 2001. Since then, she has run courses for the general public three times a
year and also community-funded courses for 60+, low-income groups, social workers, carers and
mental health and victim support groups.
